Re: What Are the Race Deniers Denying?

Gregory Taylor (gtaylor@shell1.msn.fullfeed.com)
10 Dec 1996 16:22:02 GMT

Bob Whitaker <bwhit@conterra.com> wrote:
>Certainly I can understand taht, being a Poltiically Correct clone, you
>assume that everybody lies in print. To you, it just a question of
>lying for "a good cause".

Actually, I make no such assumptions. My question derives from one of
your own sentences, which seems rather simple to parse. Just in case
you were hoping we'd all missed it, here it is again:

>> >From bwhit@conterra.com Sat Jun 1 06:39:10 PDT 1996
>> >Message-ID: <4oo50f$23b@molokini.conterra.com>
>> ... I have also lied
>> >about my position in poltical writing a number of times.
>> >Others would call it stretching the truth, but I consider any
>> >intentional misstatemetn of fact to be a lie.

>You wouldn't understand this, of course, but there is a big difference
>between an unintended mistake and a lie. This will seem a mere quibble
>to you, but it's very important to me: I have made lots of mistakes in
>ny writings, but I've never lied in anything I've published.
>Can you see the diffference?

The comment of yours I've posted above would seem to contradict what
you've written previously. The guy who uses your name in the June 1
posting tells us that he has lied about his position in political
writing, and the guy posting yesterday from the same place with the
same name tells us that he's never lied in anything he's published.
Unless we do some fancy quibbling about the difference between
"in political writing" and "publishing" (which is, I suspect, where
this is going), one of the two of you *is* lying, rat cheer.

I note, too, that you claim in the 1 June bit to appear quite scrupulous
about honesty and authenticity - going so far as to collapse the
distinction between "stretching the truth" and "lying". I find it
curious that you'd go to so much trouble there and to be so ethically
lapsed when it comes to "what you've published" and "what you've written."
Seems to me as though you're abandoning the moral high ground pretty
clearly.

Considering that you seem so interested in appearances and actions,
I'd think that you'd be pretty ashamed of needing to lean on some kind
of difference between what you "write" and what you "publish." In doing
so, you're explicitly telling us that there's reason to believe that
you're duplicitous, aren't you? Haven't you rather clearly implied
that it's possible that the "published" Bob Whitaker who plagues both
our houses is perhaps lying (if we read your June I missal)? And
aren't you creating some problems for your credibility if you claim
a difference between what you "write" and what you "publish" in terms
of truth content? You seem to be doing so here - I can't think of another
way to reconcile the two Whitaker posts above.

You seem rather confused. I can't say it surprises me.

-- 

When I pronounce the word Future,/the first syllable already belongs to the

past./When I pronounce the word Silence,/I destroy it./When I pronounce the

word Nothing,/I make something no nonbeing can hold./ (Wislawa Szymborska)

Gregory Taylor WORT-FM URL:http://www.msn.fullfeed.com/~gtaylor/RTQE.html